Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00428)

Oct 31 2004

Dear Friend E.

Here are some notes on the various hierarchies of Adepts which might be of
use in considering your question.


ADEPT GRADING


Q.:	Can GRADES be DISTINGUISHED among the ADEPTS


Q.: In just the same way as a polished diamond shows the work which
gives it value and brilliancy, so the man who has gone through probation and
teaching under the Adepts carries upon his person the ineffaceable marks.

To the ordinary eye untrained in this department, no such Indications are
visible; but those who can see describe them as being quite prominent and
wholly beyond the control of the bearer. For this reason that one who has
progressed, say, three steps along the way, will have three marks, and it is
useless to pretend that his rank is a step higher, for, if it were, then the
fourth mark would be there, since it grows with the being's development.

Now, as these signatures cannot be imitated or forged, the whole
Inner fraternity has no need for concealment of signs. No one can
commit a fraud upon or extract from them the secrets of higher degrees by
having obtained signs and pass-words out of a book or in return
for the payment of fees, and none can procure the conferring of any
advancement until the whole nature of the man exactly corresponds
to the desired point of development.

In two ways the difference between the Adept fraternity and
Worldly secret societies can be seen -- in their treatment of nations and
Of their own direct special disciples.

Nothing is forced or depends upon favor. Everything is arranged
In accordance with the best interests of a nation, having in view
The cyclic influences at any time prevailing, and never before the
Proper time. When they desire to destroy the chains forged by dogmatism,
They do not make the error of suddenly appearing before the astonished
eyes of the people; for they know well that such a course would only
alter the dogmatic belief in one set of ideas to a senseless and
equally dogmatic adherence to the Adepts as gods, or else create in the
minds of many the surety that the devil was present."
[Culled from ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT]



Again we find:


BODHISATTVA - BUDDHA -- DHYAN CHOHAN

	
BODHISATTVA (Sk). Lit., “he, whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence
(bodhi)”; those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect Buddhas,
i.e., to be entitled to Nirvâna. This, as applied to Manushi (terrestrial)
Buddhas. In the metaphysical sense, Bodhisattva is a title given to the sons
of the celestial Dhyâni Buddhas." Glos 59


DHYANI BODHISATTVAS (Sk.). In Buddhism, the five sons of the Dhyani-Buddhas.
They have a mystic meaning in Esoteric Philosophy.
 
DHYANI BUDDHAS (Sk.). They “of the Merciful Heart”; worshipped especially in
Nepaul. These have again a secret meaning." Glos 101


MANUSHI OR MANUSHI BUDDHAS (Sk.). Human Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or incarnated
Dhyan Chohans." Glos 206


DHYAN CHOHANS (Sk). Lit., “The Lords of Light”. The highest gods, answering
to the Roman Catholic Archangels. The divine Intelligences charged with the
supervision of Kosmos." Glos 101

[from Voice, p. 78: --
"Yea; on the Arya Path thou art no more Srotapatti, thou art a Bodhisattva.
(1) The stream is cross'd. 'Tis true thou hast a right to Dharmakaya
vesture; but Sambogakaya is greater than a Nirvanee, and greater still is a
Nirmanakaya—the Buddha of Compassion. (2)

================================
Footnotes

(1) A BODHISATTVA is, in the hierarchy, less than a "perfect Buddha." In the

exoteric parlance these two are very much confused. Yet the innate and right
popular perception, owing to that self-sacrifice, has placed a Bodhisattva
higher in its reverence than a Buddha.

(2) This same popular reverence calls "Buddhas of Compassion" those
BODHISATTVAS who, having reached the rank of an Arhat (i.e., having
completed the fourth or seventh Path), refuse to pass into the Nirvanic
state or "don the Dharmakaya robe and cross to the other shore," as it would
then become beyond their power to assist men even so little as Karma
permits. They prefer to remain invisibly (in Spirit, so to speak) in the
world, and contribute toward man's salvation by influencing them to follow
the Good Law, i.e., lead them on the Path of Righteousness. It is part of
the exoteric Northern Buddhism to honour all such great characters as
Saints, and to offer even prayers to them, ...on the other hand, the
esoteric teachings countenance no such thing. 

There is a great difference between the two teachings. The exoteric layman
hardly knows the real meaning of the word Nirmanakaya—hence the confusion
and inadequate explanations of the Orientalists.... The real teaching is,
however, this:

The three Buddhic bodies or forms are styled

1. Nirmanakaya.

2. Sambhogakaya.

3. Dharmakaya.

The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his
physical he would appear in his astral body—having in addition all the
knowledge of an Adept. 

The BODHISATTVA develops it in himself as he proceeds on the Path. Having
reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on Earth, as an Adept;
and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious
body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch
over and protect it.

SAMBHOGAKAYA is the same, but with the additional lustre of "three
perfections," one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns.

The DHARMAKAYA body is that of a complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but
an ideal breath: Consciousness merged in the Universal Consciousness, or
Soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakaya, an Adept or Buddha leaves
behind every possible relation with, or thought for this earth. Thus, to be
enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvana,
"renounces the Dharmakaya body" in mystic parlance; keeps, of the
Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his
Nirmanakaya body. The Esoteric School teaches that Gautama Buddha with
several of his Arhats is such a Nirmanakaya, higher than whom, on account of
the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind there is none known.”
Voice p. 78
==================================

AVATARS, PLANETARY SPIRITS


“Alas! by no means are we all "gods"; especially when you remember that
since the palmy days of the "impressions" and "precipitations" --“K.H.”has
been born into a new and higher light, and even that one, in no wise the
most dazzling to be acquired on this earth Verily the Light of Omniscience
and infallible Prevision on this earth--that shines only for the highest
CHOHAN alone is yet far away from me !”	MAHATMA LETTERS 424-5


”I will first say that there can be no Planetary Spirit that was not once
material or what you call human. 

When our great Buddha -- the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and the
codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth, he became a
Planetary Spirit; i.e. -- his spirit could at one and the same time rove the
interstellar spaces in full consciousness, and continue at will on Earth in
his original and individual body. 

For the divine Self had so completely disfranchised itself from matter that
it could create at will an inner substitute for itself, and leaving it in
the human form for days, weeks, sometimes years, affect in no wise by the
change either the vital principle or the physical mind of its body. 

By the way, that is the highest form of adeptship man can hope for on our
planet. But it is as rare as the Buddhas themselves, the last Khobilgan who
reached it being Sang-Ko-Pa of Kokonor (XIV Century), the reformer of
esoteric as well as of vulgar Lamaism. 

Many are those who "break through the egg-shell," few who, once out are able
to exercise their Nirira namastaka fully, when completely out of the body.
Conscious life in Spirit is as difficult for some natures as swimming, is
for some bodies. Though the human frame is lighter in its bulk than water,
and that every person is born with the faculty, so few develop in themselves
the art of treading water that death by drowning is the most frequent of
accidents. The planetary Spirit of that kind (the Buddha like) can pass at
will into other bodies -- of more or less etherialised matter, inhabiting
other regions of the Universe. There are many other grades and orders, but
there is no separate and eternally constituted order of Planetary Spirits.”
MAHATMA LETTERS, 43-44


“The cycle of intelligent existences commences at the highest worlds or
planets -- the term "highest" meaning here the most spiritually perfect.
Evoluting from cosmic matter -- which is akasa, the primeval not the
secondary plastic medium, or Ether of Science instinctively suspected,
unproven as the rest -- man first evolutes from this matter in its most
sublimated state, appearing at the threshold of Eternity as a perfectly
Etherial -- not Spiritual Entity, say -- a Planetary Spirit. 

He is but one remove from the universal and Spiritual World Essence -- the
Anima Mundi of the Greeks, or that which humanity in its spiritual decadence
has degraded into a mythical personal God. 

Hence, at that stage, the Spirit -- man is at best an active Power, an
immutable, therefore an unthinking Principle (the term "immutable" being
again used here but to denote that state for the time being, the
immutability applying here but to the inner principle which will vanish and
disappear as soon as the speck of the material in him will start on its
cyclic work of Evolution and transformation). In his subsequent descent, and
in proportion of the increase of matter he will assert more and more his
activity. 

Now, the congeries of the star-worlds (including our own planet) inhabited
by intelligent beings may be likened to an orb or rather an epicycloid
formed of rings like a chain -- worlds inter-linked together, the totality
representing an imaginary endless ring, or circle. 

The progress of man throughout the whole -- from its starting to its closing
points meeting on the highest point of its circumference -- is what we call
the Maha Yug or Great Cycle, the Kuklos, whose head is lost in a crown of
absolute Spirit, and its lowest point of circumference in absolute matter --
to viz. the point of cessation of action of the active principle. If using a
more familiar term we call the Great Cycle the Macrokosm and its component
parts or the inter-linked star worlds Microkosms, the occultists' meaning in
representing each of the latter as perfect copies of the former will become
evident. The Great is the Prototype of the smaller cycles: and as such, each
star world has in its turn its own cycle of Evolution which starts with a
purer and ends with a grosser or more material nature. 

As they descend, each world presents itself naturally more and more shadowy,
becoming at the "antipodes" absolute matter. Propelled by the irresistible
cyclic impulse the Planetary Spirit has to descend before he can reascend.
On his way he has to pass through the whole ladder of Evolution, missing no
rung, to halt at every star world as he would at a station; and, besides the
unavoidable cycle of that particular and every respective star world to
perform in it his own "life-cycle" to, viz.: returning and reincarnating as
many times as he fails to complete his round of life in it, as he dies on it
before reaching the age of reason as correctly stated in Isis…. 

After circling, so to say, along the arc of the cycle, circling along and
within it (the daily and yearly rotation of the Earth is as good an
illustration as any) when the Spirit-man reaches our planet, which is one of
the lowest, having lost at every station some of the etherial and acquired
an increase of material nature, both spirit and matter have become pretty
much equilibrized in him. 

But then, he has the Earth's cycle to perform; and, as in the process of
involution and evolution downward, matter is ever striving to stifle spirit,
when arrived to the lowest point of his pilgrimage, the once pure Planetary
Spirit will be found dwindled to -- what Science agrees to call a primitive
or Primordial man -- amidst a nature as primordial -- speaking geologically,
for physical nature keeps pace with the physiological as well as the
spiritual man, in her cyclic career. 

At that point the great Law begins its work of selection. Matter found
entirely divorced from spirit is thrown over into the still lower worlds --
into the sixth "GATE" or "way of rebirth" of the vegetable and mineral
worlds, and of the primitive animal forms. 

>From thence, matter ground over in the workshop of nature proceeds soulless
back to its Mother Fount; while the Egos purified of their dross are enabled
to resume their progress once more onward. It is here, then, that the
laggard Egos perish by the millions. It is the solemn moment of the
"survival of the fittest," the annihilation of those unfit. It is but matter
(or material man) which is compelled by its own weight to descend to the
very bottom of the "circle of necessity" to there assume animal form; as to
the winner of that race throughout the worlds -- the Spiritual Ego, he will
ascend from star to star, from one world to another, circling onward to
rebecome the once pure planetary Spirit, then higher still, to finally reach
its first starting point, and from thence -- to merge into MYSTERY. No adept
has ever penetrated beyond the veil of primitive Kosmic matter. The highest,
the most perfect vision is limited to the universe of Form and Matter. “
MAHATMA LETTERS pp. 45 - 47


“…never lose sight of the hint given you in my letter upon the Planetaries.
(1) At the beginning of each Round, when humanity reappears under quite
different conditions than those afforded for the birth of each new race and
its sub-races, a "Planetary" has to mix with these primitive men, and to
refresh their memories, and reveal to them the truths they knew during the
preceding Round. 

Hence the confused traditions about Jehovahs, Ormazds, Osirises, Brahms, and
the tutti quanti. But that happens only for the benefit of the first Race.
It is the duty of the latter to choose the fit recipients among its sons,
who are "set apart" to use a Biblical phrase -- as the vessels to contain
the whole stock of knowledge, to be divided among the future races and
generations until the close of that Round. Why should I say more since you
must understand my whole meaning; and that I dare not reveal it in full. 

Every race had its adepts; and with every new race, we are allowed to give
them out as much of our knowledge as the men of that race deserve it. The
last seventh Race will have its Buddha as every one of its predecessors had;
but, its adepts will be far higher than any of the present race, for among
them will abide the future Planetary, the Dhyan Chohan whose duty it will be
to instruct or "refresh the memory" of the first race of the fifth Round men
after this planet's future obscuration. 

En Passant, to show to you that not only were not the "races" invented by
us, but that they are a cardinal dogma with the Lama Buddhists and with all
who study our esoteric doctrine, I send you an explanation on a page or two
in Rhys Davids "Buddhism," -- otherwise incomprehensible, meaningless and
absurd. It is written with the special permission of the Chohan (my Master)
and -- for your benefit. No Orientalist has ever suspected the truths
contained in it, and -- you are the first Western man (outside Tibet) to
whom it is now explained. “ 
MAHATMA LETTERS pp. 157-8


“…the highest Planetary Spirits, those, who can no longer err. But these
appear on Earth but at the origin of every new human kind; at the junction
of, and close of the two ends of the great cycle. And, they remain with man
no longer than the time required for the eternal truths they teach to
impress themselves so forcibly upon the plastic minds of the new races as to
warrant them from being lost or entirely forgotten in ages hereafter, by the
forthcoming generations. The mission of the planetary Spirit is but to
strike the KEY NOTE OF TRUTH. Once he has directed the vibration of the
latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the catenation of that race
and to the end of the cycle -- the denizen of the highest inhabited sphere
disappears from the surface of our planet -- till the following
"resurrection of flesh." The vibrations of the Primitive Truth are what your
philosophers name "innate ideas." MAHATMA LETTERS, pp. 41-2


========================================


ELEMENTALS



“…the "devas" -- the servants of the Dhyan-Chohans. It is the latter who are
the "Planetary" and of course it is illogical to say that Adepts are greater
than they, since we all strive to become Dhyan-Chohans in the end. Still
there have been adepts "greater" than the lower degrees of the Planetary.”
MAHATMA LETTERS , pp. 321


H P B wrote in part : (excerpts from "Elementals" HPB Articles (U L T), 
Vol 2, p. 127)


"THE Universal Æther was not, in the eyes of the ancients, simply a
tenantless something, stretching throughout the expanse of heaven; it was
for them a boundless ocean, peopled like our familiar earthly seas, with
Gods, Planetary Spirits, monstrous and minor creatures, and having in its
every molecule the germs of life -- from the potential up to the most
developed. 

Like the finny tribes which swarm in our oceans and familiar bodies of
water, each kind having its habitat in some spot to which it is curiously
adapted, some friendly, and some inimical to man, some pleasant and some
frightful to behold, some seeking the refuge of quiet nooks and land-locked
harbours, and some traversing great areas of water; so the various races of
the Planetary, Elemental, and other Spirits, were believed by them to
inhabit the different portions of the great ethereal ocean, and to be
exactly adapted to their respective conditions. 


SOURCE OF ENTITIES in the UNIVERSE

According to the ancient doctrines, every member of this varied ethereal
population, from the highest "Gods" down to the soulless Elementals, was
evolved by the ceaseless motion inherent in the astral light. Light is
force, and the latter is produced by the Will. As this Will proceeds from an
intelligence which cannot err, for it is absolute and immutable and has
nothing of the material organs of human thought in it, being the superfine
pure emanation of the ONE LIFE itself, it proceeds from the beginning of
time, according to immutable laws, to evolve the elementary fabric requisite
for subsequent generations of what we term human races. 

All of the latter, whether belonging to this planet or to some other of the
myriads in space, have their earthly bodies evolved in this matrix out of
the bodies of a certain class of these elemental beings--the primordial germ
of Gods and men--which have passed away into the visible worlds. 

In the Ancient Philosophy there was no missing link to be supplied by what
Tyndall calls an "educated imagination"… our "ignorant" ancestors traced the
law of evolution throughout the whole universe. As by gradual progression
from the star-cloudlet to the development of the physical body of man, the
rule holds good, so from the Universal Æther to the incarnate human spirit,
they traced one uninterrupted series of entities. 


SPIRIT involutes into MATTER

These evolutions were from the world of Spirit into the world of gross
Matter: and through that back again to the source of all things. The
"descent of species" was to them a descent from the Spirit, primal source of
all, to the "degradation of Matter." In this complete chain of unfoldings
the elementary, spiritual beings had as distinct a place, midway between the
extremes, as Mr. Darwin's missing-link between the ape and man. 

No author in the world of literature ever gave a more truthful or more
poetical description of these beings than Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, the author
of Zanoni. ... He makes the wise Mejnour say to Glyndon: 

“Man is arrogant in proportion of his ignorance. . . . Astronomy has
corrected this delusion of human vanity, and man now reluctantly confesses
that the stars are worlds, larger and more glorious than his own. . . .
Everywhere, in this immense design, science brings new life to light. . . . 

Reasoning, then, by evident analogy, if not a leaf, if not a drop of water,
but is, no less than yonder star, a habitable and breathing world--nay, if
even man himself is a world to other lives, and millions and myriads dwell
in the rivers of his blood, and inhabit man's frame, as man inhabits
earth--common sense (if our schoolmen had it) would suffice to teach that
the circumfluent infinite which you call space--the boundless impalpable
which divides earth from the moon and stars--is filled also with its
correspondent and appropriate life. 

Is it not a visible absurdity to suppose that being is crowded upon every
leaf, and yet absent from the immensities of space! The law of the great
system forbids the waste even of an atom; it knows no spot where something
of life does not breathe. . . Well, then, can you conceive that space, which
is the infinite itself, is alone a waste, is alone lifeless, is less useful
to the one design of universal being . . . than the peopled leaf, than the
swarming globule? 

The microscope shows you the creatures on the leaf; no mechanical tube is
yet invented to discover the nobler and more gifted things that hover in the
illimitable air. Yet between these last and man is a mysterious and terrible
affinity. . . . But first, to penetrate this barrier, the soul with which
you listen must be sharpened by intense enthusiasm, purified from all
earthly desires. . . When thus prepared, science can be brought to aid it;
the sight itself may be rendered more subtile, the nerves more acute, the
spirit more alive and outward, and the element itself--the air, the
space--may be made, by certain secrets of the higher chemistry, more
palpable and clear. And this, too, is not Magic …Magic (a science that
violates Nature) exists not; it is but the science by which Nature can be
controlled. 

Now, in space there are millions of beings, not literally spiritual, for
they have all, like the animalculæ unseen by the naked eye, certain formsof
matter, though matter so delicate, air-drawn, and subtile, that it is, as it
were, but a film, a gossamer, that clothes the spirit. . . . Yet, in truth,
these races differ most widely . . . some of surpassing wisdom, some of
horrible malignity; some hostile as fiends to men, others gentle as
messengers between earth and heaven.” …


DAIMONS

We may pass now to the "Gods," or Daimons, of the ancient Egyptians and
Greeks, and from these to the Devas and Pitris of the still more ancient
Hindû Âryans. 

Who or what were the Gods, or Daimonia, of the Greeks and Romans? The name
has since then been monopolized and disfigured to their own use by the
Christian Fathers… they repeated the Zoroastrian ruse: to make a clean sweep
of all the Hindû Gods and Deities, Zoroaster had called them all Devs, and
adopted the name as designating only evil powers. 

So did the Christian Fathers. They applied the sacred name of Daimonia--the
divine Egos of man--to their devils, a fiction of diseased brains, and thus
dishonoured the anthropomorphized symbols of the natural sciences of wise
antiquity, and made them all loathesome in the sight of the ignorant and the
unlearned. 

What the Gods and Daimonia, or Daimons, really were, we may learn from
Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, and many other renowned Sages and Philosophers of
pre-Christian, as well as post-Christian days….

Xenocrates… taught that the Daimons are intermediate beings between the
divine perfection and human sinfulness, and he divides them into classes,
each subdivided into many others. 

But he states expressly that the individual or personal Soul is the leading
guardian Daimon of every man, and that no Daimon has more power over us than
our own. 

Thus the Daimonion of Socrates is the God or Divine Entity which inspired
him all his life. It depends on man either to open or close his perceptions
to the Divine voice. 

Heracleides… calls them "Daimons with airy and vaporous bodies," and affirms
that Souls inhabit the Milky Way before descending "into generation" or
sublunary existence. 

Again, [he] locates between the highest and lowest Gods (embodied Souls)
three classes of Daimons, and peoples the universe with invisible beings, he
is more rational than either our modern Scientists, who make between the two
extremes one vast hiatus of being, the playground of blind forces…

Of these three classes the first two are invisible; their bodies are pure
ether and fire (Planetary Spirits); the Daimons of the third class are
clothed with vapoury bodies; they are usually invisible, but sometimes,
making themselves concrete, become visible for a few seconds. These are the
earthly spirits, or our astral souls. 

The fact is, that the word Daimon was given by the ancients…to all kinds of
spirits, whether good or bad, human or otherwise, but the appellation was
often synonymous with that of Gods or angels. …

“The human soul is a demon that our language may name genius. She is an
immortal god, though in a certain sense she is born at the same time as the
man in whom she is. Consequently, we may say that she dies in the same way
that she is born.”

Eminent men were also called Gods by the ancients. Deified during life, even
their "shells" were reverenced during a part of the Mysteries. Belief in
Gods, in Larvæ and Umbræ, was a universal belief then, as it is fast
becoming--now. Even the greatest Philosophers, men who have passed to
posterity as the hardest Materialists and Atheists--only because they
rejected the grotesque idea of a personal extra-cosmic God--such as
Epicurus, for instance, believed in Gods and invisible beings. Going far
back into antiquity, out of the great body of Philosophers of the
pre-Christian ages, we may mention Cicero, as one who can least be accused
of superstition and credulity. Speaking of those whom he calls Gods and who
are either human or atmospheric spirits, he says: 

“We know that of all livings beings man is the best formed, and, as the gods
belong to this number, they must have a human form. . . . I do not mean to
say that the gods have body and blood in them; but I say that they seem as
if they had bodies with blood in them. . . . Epicurus, for whom hidden
things were as tangible as if he had touched them with his finger, teaches
us that gods are not generally visible, but that they are intelligible; that
they are not bodies having a certain solidity . . . but that we can
recognize them by their passing images; that as there are atoms enough in
the infinite space to produce such images, these are produced before us . .
. and make us realize what are these happy, immortal beings. “ 


Best wishes,

Dallas

=====================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Estela Carson 
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 9:04 AM
To: 
Subject: S D study: Chapter 2, pages 13 & 14

Chapter 2 pages 13 and 14 from Deity, Cosmos and Man.

4. The Hierarchies of Beings,

5. Elements and Elementals

-----------

Question: How do the masters relate to these higher hierarchies.?







Best wishes,

Dallas

=====================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: Estela Carson 
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 9:04 AM
To: 
Subject: S D study: Chapter 2, pages 13 & 14

Chapter 2 pages 13 and 14 from Deity, Cosmos and Man.

4. The Hierarchies of Beings,


The Scriptures and religious traditions of all cultures make frequent
reference to non-human entities, variously termed Angels, Devas, Gods,
Spirits of one kind or another. In mythology these beings appear as
nature-spirits, fairies, sylphs, salamanders, to name but a few. Esoteric
Science supports universal tradition in affirming that the different planes
of Nature are peopled by hierarchies of beings, each with characteristic
properties and modes of functioning. In the Bible there are well-known
instances of angelic appearances, singly as "the angle of the Lord" or as "a
multitude of the heavenly host." The "thrones, dominions, principalities,
and powers" mentioned several times by St. Paul are terms well recognized in
angelology for some of the non-human hierarchies. Everywhere in Nature there
is life, manifesting through infinite gradations of individual lives, for
there is neither empty space nor inanimate matter anywhere in the universe. 

5. Elements and Elementals


These are examples of the hierarchical structure of the Cosmos. The
Elements, in Esoteric Science, are seven in number, the four familiar ones
of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, to which it adds a semi-material Ether that
is still invisible to us, and two others which are "as yet absolutely beyond
the range of human perception." [16] Yet all of these, it must always be
remembered, are aspects of the One Universal Element, the source of all
objective existence. 
These seven elements with their numberless Sub-Elements...are simply
conditional modifications and aspects of the ONE and only Element. [17]
Elementals is the term used to refer to beings who are beginning a course of
evolutionary growth, and who thus are in the elemental state of growth. In
general the term refers to beings who are below the mineral kingdom in the
evolutionary scheme. Their existence is universally recognized in folk-lore
under such names as fairies, elves, gnomes and suchlike, as mentioned
earlier. But they are best understood as forces in Nature rather than as
beings having miniature or ethereal human shapes. 

_______________________
Footnote: 
16 Secret Doctrine {Vol 1, pages 12, 40 and 78}
17 Secret Doctrine {Vol 1, pages 12, 40 and 78}

________________________

How do the masters relate to these higher hierarchies.?